Czechoslovakia was the most attractive, competent and moderate country, to emerge from the great 1918 carve-up of the central European empires, and the only one to retain its democracy right down to the end of the 1930s. It then spent the next half century under the Nazi and communist tyrannies, but it never lost its humane and democratic spirit. Indeed Czechoslovakia's "Prague Spring" of 1968 was the most gallant attempt ever to humanize and democratize the communist system. So finally this haunted country emerged from its 50 year nightmare and it promptly broken into two independent countries.
The only real difference between the ten million Czechs and five million Slovaks is that they lived for some centuries under different oppressors. The Czech lived in the Austrian half of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, while Slovaks were under the Hungarian crown.
Such things have consequences, the educated classes in the Czech lands; Bohemia and Moravia spoke German and shared fully in the industrial social and cultural changes that transformed western and central Europe in the past few centuries.
So from the founding of the republic in 1918 the rural deeply catholic Slovaks had to put up with being patronized by the wealthier, worldlier Czechs and developed major –league inferior complex.
Nevertheless, Czech and Slovaks got along reasonably well both under democracy and under communist rule. Therefore their separation became indispensably on January1, 1993.
The only real difference between the ten million Czechs and five million Slovaks is that they lived for some centuries under different oppressors. The Czech lived in the Austrian half of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, while Slovaks were under the Hungarian crown.
Such things have consequences, the educated classes in the Czech lands; Bohemia and Moravia spoke German and shared fully in the industrial social and cultural changes that transformed western and central Europe in the past few centuries.
So from the founding of the republic in 1918 the rural deeply catholic Slovaks had to put up with being patronized by the wealthier, worldlier Czechs and developed major –league inferior complex.
Nevertheless, Czech and Slovaks got along reasonably well both under democracy and under communist rule. Therefore their separation became indispensably on January1, 1993.